Movies coming your way in 2017

Well, it’s fair to say this year has not been the best year for movies. We’ve covered this in greater detail in our blog post, ‘The summer movies of 2016: What went wrong?’, but to simplify, the films of 2016 were largely a bit… meh.

From Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie to X-Men: Apocalypse, 2016 had more turkeys than a Tesco warehouse and to say we were a little disappointed would be a bit of an understatement. But hey, onwards and upwards and all that, 2017 is on the horizon and that means Hollywood has another 365 days to redeem itself. Hurrah!

So what’s in store?

Well, keen to keep movie fans up to date with next year’s big releases, the Honcho-SFX blog is offering up a handy guide to some of the films set to cause a stir in 2017. Expect more from Marvel, more from the Star Wars saga and more remakes hoping to hit you right in the nostalgia!

Oh and just a word of warning, while the movies discussed below are currently scheduled to appear throughout the year, this schedule is subject to change. Last minute changes do occur and sometimes big movies get shifted to new release dates. Basically what we’re saying is, don’t blame us if the release gets delayed a little.

Quarter One

2017 kicks off with a few franchises that you probably forgot about. First up is Underworld: Blood Wars, the fifth film in the Underworld franchise, which is closely followed by XXX: Return of Xander Cage, the third film in the XXX series. Both of these films are closely followed by Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the sixth (and supposedly) final movie in the Resident Evil franchise.

Moving further into this first quarter expect to see quite a few big name releases, including The Lego Batman Movie (yay); Logan (double yay); Power Rangers (triple yay); and Kong: Skull Island (erm… monster-sized yay?). All of these movies have a lot of potential, but expect to get the tissues out with Logan as the movie will mark the final appearance of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.

Looking past these movies, if we had to put money on one film being a huge success in Quarter One it would be Beauty and the Beast. The trailer looks good, there is already a positive buzz about the movie and well, quite frankly who doesn’t want to see a live-action Beauty and the Beast movie, based on Disney’s animated classic?

Disney has had a lot of success with their previous live-action remakes and we firmly believe Beauty and the Beast will be the biggest of them all! Just watch this space.

Other releases during Quarter One include, The Belko Experiment, T2: Trainspotting, Fifty Shades Darker, John Wick: Chapter 2, Ghost in the Shell, CHiPs and Monster Trucks. Oh and just a word of warning on that last one; Monster Trucks has already been shifted around the schedule a number of times, with early reports being less than enthusiastic about the movie, so approach with caution.

Quarter Two

Moving into Quarter Two, the Smurfs return in Smurfs: The Lost Village; the Fast and the Furious guys and gals return in Fast 8; and Jack Sparrow returns with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (or Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge as it’ll be known in the UK). Marvel Studios will be kicking off the first of its three superhero movies this year with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Universal will be hoping to kick-start its own shared universe with the remake of The Mummy.

And speaking of ‘world building’, Warner Bros continues to develop the DC Cinematic Universe with Wonder Woman; Paramount expands the Transformers franchise with Transformers: The Last Knight; and Fox serves up the Prometheus/Alien hybrid, Alien: Covenant. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson has been entrusted with another well-known property, Baywatch – which arrives in May.

Of the movies listed above, we expect most to do well, but Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy to do the best. Traditionally, Transformers has performed very well at the worldwide box office despite poor reviews, but will this fifth entry prove one too many for the Robots in Disguise? Only time will tell.

Other movies set to arrive in Quarter Two include Cars 3, Despicable Me 3 and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.

Quarter Three

Quarter Three gets off to a very big start with the release of Marvel Studios’ second big release of 2017 – Spider-Man: Homecoming. The film – which is a co-production between Marvel Studios & Sony – will pit Marvel’s most famous superhero against the Vulture to become the sixteenth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Marvel (Disney) and Sony will be hoping for big things from Spider-Man and we’re pretty sure they won’t be disappointed. Although we’re now on our third Spider-Man actor since 2002, Tom Holland’s brief appearance as Spidey in this year’s Captain America: Civil War was very well received and this should pay off big time at next year’s box office.

Outside of the MCU, those damn dirty apes return with War for the Planet of the Apes; possessed doll, Anabelle returns in… er… Anabelle 2; and Pennywise returns in the remake of Stephen King’s It. And speaking of Stephen King, the long-awaited movie adaptation of King’s The Dark Tower arrives in July.

Other movies hoping to entice you into the cinema during the third quarter include Dunkirk, The Lego Ninjango Movie, Emojimovie: Express Yourself and Flatliners. That last one is a sequel (not a remake) to the 1990 film of the same name.

Quarter Four

And finally, as we move into the fourth quarter of 2017, there are two major releases which we feel we should address first: Justice League and Star Wars: Episode VIII. Without doubt, these two movies will be grabbing the most attention in late 2017, so expect everyone (including the Honcho-SFX blog) to be discussing them endlessly come this time next year.

Star Wars: Episode VIII should provide us with some key details regarding lead character Rey (is she a Skywalker? A Kenobi? A Solo?), while at the same time take the Star Wars Universe forward with new characters and locations. Meanwhile, Justice League will look to move the DC Cinematic Universe in a more positive direction, with a movie that promises to be less intense than Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad.

Outside of the Big Two, expect Quarter Four to serve up a number of horror movies (well it is Halloween after all) including Saw: Legacy and Insidious: Chapter 4, as well as a few kid’s movies (well it is Christmas after all) including My Little Pony: The Movie and Paddington 2. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson takes on another established property with the Jumanji sequel; Marvel Studios’ releases its third film of the year, Thor: Ragnarok; and the Kingsman sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, arrives.

So which of these movies are you most excited to see and which are you already looking to avoid?

What’s interesting to note at this point is that so far, none of these films (with the exception of Monster Trucks) has been signalled out as A REALLY BAD IDEA. In past years, there’s usually a lot of chatter about movies which some film fans are less-than-happy about (think Ghostbusters (2016), Fantastic Four (2015), Robocop (2014) etc); but that doesn’t seem to be the case for this coming year. Does this mean every movie of 2017 has an equal chance? Hmm… we’ll see.

About the author: Alex Wiggan has written blog posts for Honcho-SFX blog since October 2014. He likes writing, eating pizza and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sometimes in that order.